Government will be presented with West Yorkshire mass transit plans after promising £2.5bn

An artists impression of what a mass transit service could look like. Picture: WYCA

Construction on the network expected to link towns and cities including Leeds, Bradford, Wakefield and Huddersfield is due to begin in 2028 and be completed by 2040.

West Yorkshire Combined Authority (WYCA) is considering a number of routes, looking at how it can acquire the land required and trying to decide on the type of transport – trams, tram-trains and modified buses.

The taxpayer-funded organisation is planning to submit an outline business case to the Government in March, setting out how it plans to proceed .

According to a new report, WYCA wants to select routes and a mode of transport to ensure the scheme is “well developed enough” to secure the funding needed for construction to begin in 2028.

It comes after Prime Minister Rishi Sunak promised £2.5bn for the mass-transit system in October after the controversial decision to scrap the northern leg of HS2.

The Government has already provided more than £200m that is being used to draw up detailed plans for the transport network.

In August, WYCA said “difficult decisions” would need to be made about the route, as the design team weighed up proposals for networks that are fully or partially segregated from the roads.

Under the current plans, a line linking Leeds, Bradford, Cleckheaton, Heckmondwike and Dewsbury could be completed and open to passengers as part of phase one of the project in 2031 – if funding is approved.

It is the third attempt to bring a mass-transit system back to West Yorkshire, since Leeds’s tram network was shut down in 1959.

It is the largest city in western Europe without a light rail or metro system.

Plans for Leeds Supertram were abandoned by Tony Blair’s government in 2005 due to concerns about the soaring cost, before a bid to bring a £250m trolleybus network to the city was scrapped in 2016.

West Yorkshire Mayor Tracy Brabin is urging the LabourParty to include a promise to build a mass-transit network in her region in its General Election manifesto.